Various Artists

Night Slugs Allstars, Volume 1

Night Slugs; 2010

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The title here has to be just a little tongue-in-cheek: The Night Slugs label has only been around for about a year, and this compilation covers literally every artist who has recorded original material for it. One way to read it is that they're all stars-- corny, I know, but the label's releases have been noticeably consistent (or at least consistently interesting) since they started coming out in January, demonstrating a cross-section of UK dance music whose influences are all over the map: southern U.S. rap, London grime, a little bit of dubstep, Detroit techno, Dâm-Funk-style electro-funk, etc. Throwing proper nouns at this music is fun for genre wonks, but the reality is that the comp works well because it makes all that variety explicit.

Still, the marks that unify Night Slugs are as obvious to my ears as the ones that vary it. Most of the label's productions are colorful and brash, working not only through layers of sound but head-on collisions of them. If the music were generally less imaginative than it is, I'd say that the urgency and pride with which it all foregrounds its glitz borders on tasteless, but Night Slugs know to whom they're appealing, and it's not the folks thoughtfully nodding their heads in the corner. Some of the synths here are noxious enough to peel paint from the walls, and though the futurist crunk of Girl Unit's "Wut" is the only song to feature an actual airhorn, airhorns are implied throughout. There is exactly one track that could probably be described as "laid-back" here-- Jacques Greene's "(Baby I Don't Know) What You Want"-- and its runner-up is called "Booty Slammer".

Night Slugs' record covers-- all designed by co-founder and label contributor Bok Bok-- are always combinations of black and one or two other colors, presented in various shades. Usually, the image is geometric and semi-architectural (a suspension bridge and car; glowing pistons spelling out words), but presented ag ainst a completely black background in a way that makes them look iconic, like they're without space or landscape. I mention them because they're a strong analogue for the label's musical style: Not only do the bright colors sing in the darkness, but they're given a proper spectrum. In the same way the tracks remind me that there's a lot of range to be extracted from the seemingly monotonous blast of a rave synth, the covers remind me that hot pink can get as close to purple as it can to white-- range in places you might expect to be limited. Listen to this comp more than a few times and you'll probably start to hear chasms between stuff like Bok Bok & Cubic Zirconia's "Reclash (Dub)" and Girl Unit's ever-luxurious "Wut". The palettes are similar, but the ends to which they're used-- and the moods they evoke-- are different.

People who've followed the label since its inception-- and before that, when it was just a club night-- will diddle around with arguments about what should or shouldn't've made it onto this comp. Those arguments can be fun, like: Two tracks from Lil Silva seems more generous toward Lil Silva than to us as listeners; "She Wore Velour" is a more obvious choice for Velour than "Booty Slammer"; and "Bust Broke" as a choice for Kingdom feels willfully evasive when we have "Fogs", but they're both good. On the other hand, Bok Bok gives Girl Unit's "IRL" a remix, and Jam City's "Arpjam"-- one of the comp's new tracks-- indicates that regardless of whether Night Slugs are ready to put out Volume 2 by 2012, they're not slowing down just yet.